An emergency summit between Russia, Germany and France aimed at containing the spread of the Ukraine conflict ended inconclusively on Friday night, with agreement only to work on a draft ceasefire.

Angela Merkel and François Hollande spent more than two hours in the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin before leaving for Moscow airport without comment.

But a German government spokesman said there was at least agreement to work on a joint truce document based on earlier ceasefire terms agreed in September in Minsk but never implemented.

“On the basis of a proposal by Germany’s chancellor and France’s president, a possible joint document to implement the Minsk agreement will now be worked on,” Steffen Seibert said after the talks in Moscow.

According to European diplomats, Putin had suggested reviving the Minsk agreement but with different ceasefire lines that recognised the territorial gains made by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. But that suggestion was rejected by Kiev.

The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the talks involved just the three leaders without delegations, aides or experts. Despite the late start, there seemed little chance of the talks going to a second day, as Putin’s press service announced he would spend Saturday in Sochi at an “anniversary ice show” celebrating one year since the start of the Winter Olympics. He said the three leaders would hold a four-way phone-call with Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko on Sunday to discuss the proposals.

As the day went on it became increasingly clear that Merkel and Hollande had come to Moscow without a comprehensive plan. Instead, they had a response to proposals Putin sent them in letters earlier in the week, in which he envisaged an expansion of territory under rebel control.

However, Ukraine is insisting that any new ceasefire agreement should be based on the frontlines Russia agreed to in a truce brokered in Minsk last September.

Merkel and Hollande met Poroshenko, in Kiev on Thursday on their way to Moscow. They promised him that any new deal would guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The Moscow talks took place amid rising fears of an escalation in the fighting. A battle around the eastern Ukraine town of Debaltseve, a strategically important railway junction surrounded on three sides by separatist forces, was paused to let civilians leave by bus. On the ground, the ceasefire appeared to hold. The town, once of 20,000 people, has been the main target of a bloody rebel push. According to Kiev and western capitals, the new offensive is being fuelled by Russian arms supplies and manpower.

The Ukrainian government is appealing for western weapons to help it hold off the assault. “The peace in Europe depends on peace in Ukraine,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukraine’s prime minister said in a tweet. “And to get peace, Ukraine needs to have a capacity to defend itself.”

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has said Washington is weighing up whether to supply arms to the Ukraine government but the suggestion has met strong opposition from some western Europe governments, led by Germany. “Focusing merely on weapons could add fuel to the conflict and rather lead us away from a desired solution,” the German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Friday. She argued that it would be smarter for western countries to use economic sanctions to hurt the Putin regime. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, said on Twitter the leaders discussed “steps so that the Minsk agreement can start working”.

Kerry sounded lukewarm about Merkel and Hollande’s visit. He said Putin had sent “a couple of ideas” and the pair had responded Kerry also said the US wanted a diplomatic solution but was reviewing all options, including “providing defensive systems to Ukraine”. US officials suspect Putin might use European eagerness to stop the fighting to consolidate his hold on Crimea.

The chances of a breakthrough hinge on establishing a durable ceasefire, according to senior officials.

Putin was said to be refusing to negotiate with Poroshenko, after making fresh proposals to Kiev 48 hours ago.

A senior British army officer has urged the British government to support a deterrent against Russian forces. General Sir Richard Shirreff, the leading British commander in Nato until last March, told BBC Radio 4’s Today that a strong message needed to be sent to Putin if mainland Europe was to avoid “total war”. He said: “Unless Nato speaks from a position of strength, we are gifting the advantage to Mr Putin. Wars start as a result of weakness, not of strength.”